The GOP's Dirty Z-Bomb

Editorial

September 3, 2004

NEW YORK -- Maybe John Kerry should take it as a compliment. George W.
Bush and his gang have decided that the only way they can hold on to power is to
throw so much dirt at Kerry that he ends up looking like Pigpen. In the
process, they are painting the Democratic Party as a collection of lily-livered,
America-hating, French-loving, defense-destroying, United Nations-kowtowing
girlie men.

Oh, yes, and the Bush boys are also calling for
bipartisanship and national unity.

As one Democrat put it, the
"Republicans have dealt in cynicism and skepticism" and "mastered the art of
division and diversion."

The Democrat who spoke those words happens to
be Zell Miller. That would be the old Zell Miller, from his keynote speech to
the 1992 Democratic National Convention -- a speech, by the way, that was
infinitely less harsh than Miller's performance on Wednesday. It's impressive
that Miller has proved to be such a fast learner in the folkways of the crowd
he's now running with. Miller will proudly stand as the man who gave one of the
most vicious and demagogic convention speeches in the television age. From
Miller's speech, you could assume that the Democrats had nominated Saddam
Hussein from his jail cell.

How else to explain the stuff Miller just
made up? "Today's Democratic leaders," he said, "see America as an occupier,
not a liberator." Excuse me, but which Democratic leader is he talking
about?

"In their warped way of thinking," Miller said of members of the
party he addressed 12 years ago, "America is the problem, not the solution.
They don't believe there is any real danger in the world except that which
America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy." He
is talking here about a Democratic Party that rallied to President Bush after
Sept. 11 and was almost unanimous in supporting the war against the
Taliban.

"Senator Kerry," Miller added at one point, "has made it clear
that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations."
Has made it clear? Here's what Kerry said in his acceptance speech last
month: "I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over
our national security." Now that's pretty clear.

Thank the Lord
that there are still Republicans who have not been poisoned by the philosophy of
win-at-any-price. In the early hours of Thursday morning, I ran into Sen. John
McCain, who spontaneously brought up Miller's speech. "I think it backfires,"
McCain said, his face a picture of genuine astonishment. "It makes [Pat]
Buchanan's speech in Houston look like milquetoast." McCain was referring to
Buchanan's "culture wars" speech, widely thought to have damaged the first
President Bush at the 1992 Republican convention.

But these Bush guys are
smart. Note that they made sure the most incendiary words spoken at this
convention came from the mouth of a nominal Democrat. If the backlash McCain
predicts develops, they can lay the blame on old Zell, the disgruntled member of
Kerry's party. And Miller was so rabid that when Dick Cheney started piling his
own mud on Kerry a few minutes later, the vice president looked like a
mild-mannered college professor.

But Cheney was no less adept than Miller
at distorting Kerry's record. Consider this Cheney characterization of what
Kerry said in his acceptance speech. "He declared at the Democratic convention
that he will forcefully defend America -- after we have been attacked. My
fellow Americans, we have already been attacked. We are faced with an enemy who
seeks the deadliest of weapons to use against us, and we cannot wait for the
next attack."

What Kerry actually said -- in a speech that repeatedly
referred to the ongoing war on terrorism -- was this: "Let there be no mistake:
I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met
with a swift and a certain response." The old Zell was right: Cheney's sleight
of hand here is a perfect example of the "art of division and diversion" -- and
distortion.

Personally, I'm sorry the Republicans did all this, because
I had intended to write about what a masterly political speech Laura Bush had
given the night before. She pushed all the right buttons in appealing to
moderate undecided voters. But subtlety of the sort the first lady practiced
carried an expiration time of exactly 24 hours.

If reelecting the
president requires leaving the country more broken and more divided along party
lines than it already is, we now know this a price those in power are happy to
pay.